


You Help Me Lose My Mind

by fourfreedoms



Series: Every Reason For Letting You Go [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, PWP, Post-Lockout, baseball cap kink, pre-cup win (and holy shit I got to type that), what how did feelings get in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"why hasn't anyone written a fic where johnny and kaner fuck and johnny tells kaner to keep his hat on while he rides him?" An eternal question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Help Me Lose My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This all started with a conversation on twitter: 
> 
>  
> 
> _Countess Von Boobs: why hasn't anyone written a fic where johnny and kaner fuck and johnny tells kaner to keep his hat on while he rides him @stolenbytigers_
> 
>   _Me: inception can’t be done._
> 
>   _Me: GAH, YOU'RE THE WORST. Now I'm writing it to be like I CAN TOTALLY WRITE PORN WITHOUT ANY SUBSTANCE AT ALL. IT CAN BE DONE._
> 
>   _Me: THIS IS THE WORST. It became a story where Johnny isn't mad about Madison, just amused that Patrick is the lamest drunk evah._
> 
>   _Me: Things I have looked up for this fic: hard water in canada, fluoridation rates, top 40 charts in Switzerland, and the NY giants logos._
> 
>   _Me: NEVER ACCUSE ME OF NOT DOING MY DUE DILIGENCE. ESPECIALLY SINCE THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PWP, WTF._
> 
>   _Countess Von Boobs: lmao_
> 
>  Countess Von Boobs also mercifully beta-ed this. She's the bestest, even if she's ensuring I never sleep again.

When the lockout ends, Jonathan hasn’t seen Patrick for nearly nine months. He hadn’t even realized that so much time had stacked up until he starts counting back. 

The last time they spoke regularly on the phone was in the aftermath of Cinco De Mayo, when Patrick called and said something about giving Jonathan the common courtesy of a heads up before shit hit the fan. 

Jonathan had nearly laughed himself sick. 

“Wait, wait, what _exactly_ did you do?” 

“I’m a little unclear on that,” Patrick replied, a sigh in his voice. 

Jonathan had watched the reports roll in over the next couple of days, truly amazed by the levels of ineptitude Patrick was capable of. Only Patrick Kane could manage a drunken tear in what was probably one of the most boring places on earth. 

“How is this so funny to you?” Patrick complained after Jonathan texted him with the comment ‘are you trying to get your nickname changed to Rambo?’ accompanied by the latest update from Deadspin, a thorough examination of all the ‘video evidence’ of fights Patrick started with frat boys, unsuspecting cheerleaders’s necks, jersey chasers, and policemen alike over the course of three days. “I was expecting something—I dunno, a lecture, not you calling me at one in the morning, crying with laughter.” 

“I’m not your mother, man,” Jonathan replied, scrolling through the miles of unflattering photos that were coming down on Google images at a lightning pace. “Besides, this shot of you passed out on the bar is priceless.” 

It just kept getting worse and worse, and eventually it reached the point where Jonathan’s mother called him up and said, “Love, is this thing with Patrick all right?” 

He explained to her that Patrick was fine, that he was mostly just incredibly embarrassed and not in any serious trouble with the franchise, to which his mother replied, “It just seems to me that he has some friends who are not really his friends.” 

Which was sobering because Jonathan knew that Patrick really did have little-to-no self-control when he was drunk. True buddies never would have allowed that kind of shitshow to happen. Jonathan, by comparison, would have punched him out and dragged him back by his ankles after the first choking incident. But Patrick had set some pretty indisputable boundaries between them. Patrick’s off-ice antics were not his concern. He’d made it clear that this thing they had between them didn’t give him any right to comment on Patrick’s life and unless Jonathan wanted to completely violate the rules, he had to let it go. 

They’d stayed in touch during the offseason. Through texts, and emails, and a billion snapchats—mostly from Kaner, who was living it up in Switzerland and perpetually sending him a billion pictures a week of everything from the hilarious bottles of detergent he found in the local grocery to the glaciers in the Dolomites. Occasionally, Jonathan had sent him a picture of the sun on the lake that had struck him particularly on a morning run, or a photo of a slice of the Chicago-style pizza that Patrick was missing out on. 

The time passed quickly. Jonathan thinks it probably felt that way because they all wanted this seemingly manageable roadblock to be solved fast, but negotiations kept breaking down, and the season kept blowing by until it was half gone and they still had no answer. 

And then, blessedly, the lockout was over. And finally, Patrick is back in the States, and the last substantive conversation they had was about Patrick’s inebriated Cinco de Mayo antics, immortalized forever in the halls of Deadspin’s vaunted sports journalism. 

He’s not sure where they go from here—or if they go from here. Jonathan’s heard something about a girlfriend from the other guys—although Patrick hasn’t mentioned having one himself. Not that that would necessarily stop either of them. This thing they’ve got going on seems to bend all sense and reason. 

Soon after the last stragglers make it back to town, it comes down the Blackhawks phone tree that the team is getting together for celebratory drinks at a fucking lameass vodka bar. Jonathan’s going to blame this one on Shawzer, because the kid still hasn’t figured out good alcohol.

When he finally does see Patrick, it’s like getting sac-tapped. The image he’s kept in his head has been the Patrick from Deadspin: a too-short hair cut and a lime green shirt covered in cheap Epson printouts. Instead, Patrick’s hair has a little of its length back, and he’s wearing a black Henley that Jonathan thinks might actually be his own and a blue NY Giants hat that Patrick bought just before the last Super Bowl. 

When he sees Jonathan, Patrick shakes his head and walks over. “You’re the worst at keeping in touch, man.” 

“What, was I supposed to have a response prepared for every picture of a chocolate bar shaped like a Swiss army knife? Every man you saw in Lederhosen?” 

Patrick shoves his shoulder.

“Lederhosen are worn in Austria,” he says. “Why you gotta be so ignorant?” 

“Says the guy who went around asking everybody on his team to read him the instructions for his fancy coffee maker, only to find that they were written in English on the next page?” 

Patrick shoves him again and says, “Just for that I’m going to the bar and telling the bartender you want Appletinis for the rest of the night.” 

It seems like a weak threat until Jonathan goes to get the next round and the bartender is already sliding an Appletini over the bar, and saying, “That’ll be twelve dollars,” with a grin that says he can’t believe Jonathan is the type. Jonathan isn’t enough of a dick to tell the bartender just what he can do with his twelve-dollar travesty, but the bartender’s shit-eating grin makes it a near thing. He awkwardly orders a round of Coronas for the rest of the guys and carts the Appletini back to the table with the beers. 

“A gift for you,” he says, placing the virally green concoction in front of Shawzer, who accepts it gleefully, easily ignoring the hooting he gets from the rest of the team.

After a few hours, Jonathan’s tired, and just a little past pleasantly buzzed. He’s been feeding the Appletinis that arrive like clockwork to Shawzer who’s worked himself well into the drunken, handsy stage of the night. 

“Jesus,” Jonathan says, peeling Shaw off of him after his latest attempt at a hug. “Who’s taking him home?”

Bollig sighs and hauls Shaw up out of his chair after a meaningful look from Jonathan. “C’mon, asshole,” he says. “Let’s get you back to your hotel.”

Patrick gets to his feet and stretches his arms above his head with a yawn. His shirt rides up, displaying a few centimeters of pale, toned muscle that Jonathan can’t look away from.

“I think that’s my cue,” Patrick says, shaking his shoulders out. He looks straight at Jonathan. “Can you give me a ride? I came with Shawzy.” 

Jonathan nods at him before gathering up his coat and going around the table to say his goodbyes. Oddly, Patrick hangs back. 

They’re silent on the way out to the car. Jonathan feels like he should say something, but finds himself unable to seize a single thread of normal conversation. Patrick seems content to stare off into space, walking companionably at his shoulder. He’d managed street parking by some miracle, but it wasn’t exactly close. 

When they get into the car, it’s freezing and Patrick curses him and tells him to start the engine already so that they can get the heat going. Jonathan sticks the key in the ignition and then very ponderously turns it. 

“Hmm, I wonder what this does,” he says. 

Patrick punches him solidly in the upper arm, just in the right place to make his funny bone jangle uncomfortably with sensation. “Fuck you, my nose is falling off.” 

Jonathan laughs and finally depresses the key the whole way so that the engine turns over. 

The talk radio that Jonathan listens to blares on uncomfortably loud and Patrick makes a disgusted noise, hijacking the USB hookup to plug in his iPhone. 

“This song was really popular over there, in Switzerland,” he clarifies as he presses play on a track, like Jonathan somehow forgot that there was a reason he hadn’t been taking morning runs along the River to Patrick’s, or going to Patrick’s favorite bar in the south loop for happy hour well drinks like they weren't making seven figures a year. Jonathan merges into traffic as a melancholic guitar starts up. The song’s in French and while Jonathan doesn’t know it, it figures French pop would appeal to Patrick.

“What’s he saying?” Patrick asks after the chorus, watching Jonathan even as Jonathan is careful to keep his eyes on the road. 

“‘I withdraw, to a place where I won't be suspected,’” Jonathan says, translating the lines as they come. “‘Then I will change my name, just like Cassius Clay. A place where I won't feel the need to take the microphone. A place where the whole world won't tap onto my life.’”

“Hmm,” Kaner says and leaves it at that. Jonathan doesn’t comment when he switches to a dance pop song that also must’ve been popular in Switzerland. 

When he turns left to get onto Upper Wacker, Patrick says, “No, let’s go to yours.”

Jonathan looks over at him and finds Patrick smiling at him, one side of his mouth lifting higher than the other. He continues clicking through bad euro trash hits just to watch Jonathan wince. 

“My place is a tomb,” he explains belatedly when Jonathan unlocks his apartment door. Patrick steps past him, unerringly going for the bank of light switches, and flicking them all on one by one before going to the kitchen to help himself to one of Jonathan’s many bottles of water. Jonathan pauses just inside his own door, knowing if Patrick turns back now he’ll see an uncomfortably fond look on his face. He blows out a breath and shuts off half the lights that Patrick turned on so that his apartment doesn’t look like it’s lit at surgical theater brightness. 

He joins Patrick in the kitchen, cracking open a bottle of Pellegrino for himself and chugging it down like it’s Gatorade. 

“Ugh, ‘mineralwasser,’” Kaner says in a fairly passable imitation of a German accent, wrinkling his nose. “If I never see a bottle of Badoit again…” 

“Of all things to take exception to,” Jonathan says, chucking his now-empty bottle at the trashcan. 

“The tap water doesn’t taste the same there,” Patrick says, leaning back against Jonathan’s counter. “I drank a lot of sparkling water so I wouldn’t notice.” 

“Huh,” Jonathan says, although he’s familiar with that phenomenon himself, the water in Manitoba being considerably harder than what comes out of the tap in Chicago. 

He looks at Patrick, wearing _Jonathan’s_ shirt, underneath the coat he still hasn’t taken off, and wonders what the hell they’re doing. 

Patrick clears his throat. “It’s fucking cold in here, man. Why do you always have it set to cold storage in this place?”

“Pussy,” he says, bumping up the thermostat. Jonathan never told him that they kept all of the living areas in the his childhood home only just above a whopping 16 degrees Celsius during the winter months. His mother had always said “Put on a sweatshirt if you’re cold," when they complained.

The heat kicks on almost immediately, and Jonathan prepares to turn around to give Patrick a beleaguered ‘are you happy?’ gesture, but Kaner has sidled up behind him without him realizing it. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

“Hey,” Kaner replies, eyes crinkling in a smile, before he grab’s Jonathan’s chin and pulls him down for a kiss. 

Jonathan hasn’t been a saint since Patrick left—not even close, but it still feels so good that he can’t stop the rumbling moan that comes up out of his chest. Patrick laughs into his mouth and draws them back over to Jonathan’s Room & Board sectional. The same one Patrick has in his own apartment, with the long piece just on the opposite side. When Patrick shoves him down onto it, Jonathan hits the back of the sectional hard enough that the breath leaves his lungs, and then Patrick climbs astride to straddle his thighs, cupping his jaw and kissing him the whole time. His breath starts coming short for a very different reason. 

Jonathan runs his fingers under the hem of Patrick’s shirt, trailing over the dimples on either side of his spine. “It’s mine, isn’t it?” 

Patrick pushes his tongue into his cheek and smiles. “I don’t know how it ended up in my stuff.”

“Liar,” Jonathan replies affectionately, tugging him down again to connect their mouths, letting Patrick suck on his lower lip until it almost hurts and he feels all of fourteen again, stuck in a pair of suddenly too-tight jeans without a sure answer for his next move.

Patrick grinds down against him, making Jonathan hiss and pull his mouth away. He rests his head against the back of the couch and takes a moment to regain his equilibrium so that he doesn’t come in his pants, right fucking then. Patrick follows the line of Jonathan’s jaw with this tongue, before dipping down and licking along the strong muscle just alongside his jugular. Jonathan groans and jerks against him, lifting his head to distract Patrick with another kiss so that he doesn’t lose it right there. 

“I want you to fuck me,” Patrick says, tightening his knees around Jonathan’s hips. 

Jonathan blinks up at him, trying to get his thoughts to connect in his brain. After a long pause during which Patrick starts to look concerned, Jonathan only manages, “Like I’m going to say no?” 

Patrick moves to get up, but Jonathan stops him with hands at his hips. “No,” he says, “right here.” 

It makes sense to him. This couch that they both have, unconsciously mirroring each other. They’ve fucked in a lot of places—probably places that they shouldn’t have simply for the sake of being circumspect—but they’ve never fucked on this couch, their couch, and suddenly Jonathan wants that fiercely.

Patrick chuckles and rolls his hips, making Jonathan’s eyes cross. 

It’s rough, maneuvering just enough to get their clothes off, especially when Jonathan refuses to let go of Patrick. Finally Patrick’s down to Jonathan’s stupid Henley and his baseball cap. He drags Jonathan’s shirt up over his shoulders, making a show of it, and forgetting that the cap still sits backwards on his head. It’s knocked horribly askew when he reemerges. 

Patrick laughs at himself and goes to tug the hat off as well, but Jonathan stops him. 

“Leave it,” he says, voice ragged. He straightens the hat on Patrick’s head. 

“The things that get you going, man,” Patrick mocks, eyebrows raised. 

Jonathan snorts and takes Patrick’s cock in his hand, giving it an experimental tug. Patrick shuts up. 

“We didn’t really think this one through,” Jonathan says, shivering as Patrick thrusts against his belly, leaving behind a shiny ribbon of precome over his abs. 

“How’s that?” Patrick asks, eyes dropping slowly closed as Jonathan shifts and his cock slides right between Patrick’s cheeks. 

Jonathan takes another deep breath as he tries to get a hold of himself. “Condoms? Lube?” 

Patrick grins again and reaches over the Jonathan’s shoulder to where they carelessly tossed his coat. He pulls his cellphone, a travel-sized tube of lube, and a swiftly unspooling roll of condoms out of one of the pockets. 

“Don’t feel pressured,” he says, looking far too pleased with himself as he tears condom off of the roll. “It was easier just to grab the whole thing out of the box.” 

“You’re an ass,” Jonathan replies, angling his hips so that when he thrusts up against Patrick the head of his cock catches at the rim of Patrick’s hole. Patrick shudders above him, dick jumping, and Jonathan bites his lip around a smile. 

It’s clearly been a while for Patrick and the first two slicked fingers don’t go in easy. Patrick doesn’t seem to mind the stretch, though, because soon he’s biting at the corner of Jonathan’s mouth and demanding more, harder, faster, right now. 

Jonathan shuts him up with a deep kiss, fucking Patrick’s mouth with his tongue in tandem with the slow, deliberate motion of his fingers sliding into Patrick’s body. 

“Jonny, Jonny…” Patrick says against Jonathan’s throat, voice breathy and broken. “Would you just—I need you to—I’m not going to—”

Finally, Jonathan gives in. He holds Patrick open with one hand and slowly eases inside. Patrick squeezes his eyes shut tight, head rolling back on his neck, and he’s still wearing that fucking blue ball cap. Patrick takes over after that, resting his forearms on Jonathan’s shoulders for leverage. Patrick’s thighs flex powerfully against Jonathan’s hips, taking him in deep, bearing down on him so hard that he Jonathan gives up any pretense of impassivity and lets his head fall back against the couch, neck going boneless. He watches Patrick riding him, his chest and throat and cheeks growing more and more flushed as he uses Jonathan like a fucktoy. 

“I hate you,” Patrick says, eyes still shut tight. “It never feels as good as this.” 

Jonathan gasps, unsure why the words get to him so much, but he can’t stop himself from towing Patrick in close, arms coming around his middle like a vice. He kisses Patrick’s throat, right in the delicate depression made by the join of his collarbone and his neck, using the brim of the backwards hat to gently tug Patrick’s head back, forcing his spine into an arch. He’s at just the right angle to hit Patrick’s prostate, and he can tell he’s successful when Patrick makes a hurt, punched-out sound that Jonathan has learned by now means it’s good, so good. He feels like he could spend a lifetime chasing that sound. They’re working against each other now, hard, Patrick thrusting down against him with everything he has, and Jonathan using the floor as leverage to get deeper and deeper inside him with every upstroke.

Patrick comes first with enough force that some of it hits Jonathan’s chin and his lower lip.

“Jesus,” Patrick says, twitching powerfully. He reaches up to thumb his come across the bow of his lip, smearing it over his skin. 

It should be disgusting. Jonathan’s learned by now that it never is. 

He comes with Patrick’s eyes on him, in a gaze that feels too sharp, and yet somehow he can’t bring himself to break it. Jonathan’s eyelids flutter as he empties himself into Patrick’s body, strobing his view of Patrick in that fucking hat before him.

He takes a moment to let his heart slow in his chest, keeping his hand at the small of Patrick’s back, measuring the steady in-and-out of his breaths and trying to match his runaway heartbeat to that stable rhythm. 

Gingerly, Patrick stands up from his body, breathing out as Jonathan’s softening cock slides free of his ass. He picks up Jonathan’s shirt from where it was discarded on the floor, smoothing his thumb over the fabric. Jonathan takes in the shift and play of his muscles, the sheen of sweat on his skin, _his shirt_ that Patrick had apparently been wearing in Biel, and his dick gives a half-hearted twitch. 

“You never asked me why,” Patrick says softly. “About Madison.” 

“I don’t need an explanation, man,” Jonathan says, shifting on the couch. He carefully tugs off the condom, and ties it off, gently lobbing it into the handily available wastebasket next to the couch.

Patrick turns around.

“Everybody needed a fucking explanation,” he says. “My mom, my sisters, Q, Bowman, Sharpy—even Abby.” 

Jonathan lurches up off of the couch, knees betraying him slightly, and comes up behind Patrick. He doesn’t pull him back into a hug, but he does tuck his chin over Patrick’s shoulder. 

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“I’m so fucked up about you,” Patrick says, head dropping forward, voice strangely broken.

“Hey, me too,” Jonathan says after a moment, and then he does put his arms around Patrick, pressing his lips to the delicate spot behind his ear where the cap ends because Patrick still has it on, and Jonathan still has his Patrick’s come on his face, and that’s just how they are, sloppy and figuring this shit out backwards.

It’s no “I love you,” but functionally it comes to the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> The song that Kaner puts on is “J’me Tire” by Maître Gims, which I actually just happened to discover when I was doing the aforementioned trolling of the Top 40 charts in Switzerland. It was the only one that wasn’t A)already famous in America and B)not in English. The fact that it was in French was just happy accident. 
> 
> You can listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_rEHfLgdcY
> 
> And I just discarded the charity game, because it didn't work with what I was doing. LISTEN, I WAS TRYING TO MAKE A POINT HERE.
> 
>  
> 
> **Edit: ALSO,[prequel here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3491390/chapters/7670645)**


End file.
